HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-14-11 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes I Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee
2 Minutes of the September 14, 2011 Meeting
3 Upstairs Conference Room Alfred Stiff Office Bldg.
4
5 Those Present:
6
7 Voting Committee Members:
8 Ralph Zimmer (Gallatin County)
9 Gary Vodehnal(City of Bozeman)
10 Danielle Scharf(City of Bozeman)
11
12 Non-Voting Committee Members:
13 John Van Delinder (City of Bozeman—Street Superintendent)
14
15 Liaison Officers:
16 Tommie Franscioni(Bozeman Police Department)
17
18 Guests:
19 Sean Becker (City Commission)
20 Sue Brown
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22 Quorum: present
23
24 NEW BUSINESS:
25
26 Ralph called the meeting to order at 12:05 PM.
27
28 1. Public Comment. Sue Brown was in attendance. She has been following our committee
29 decisions and is interested in being an at-large voting member again.
30
31 2. Consideration of Meeting Agenda. Ralph offered the opportunity to provide input on the
32 agenda. No comments were made.
33
34 3. Minutes. Minutes of the August 10, 2011 meeting were reviewed and unanimously
35 approved with minor edits made by Ralph Zimmer prior to distribution.
36
37 4. Opportunity to Elect Additional 2011 At-large Voting Member. Ralph offered the
38 opportunity to elect an additional at-large voting member to the committee. At-large
39 members serve until the first meeting of the next calendar year. We currently have one (Sam
40 Miller) and have the option of having two. Ralph asked Sue if she would be interested in
41 returning. Sue was an at-large member last year, but was unable to continue at the beginning
42 of this year. She has stayed on our "friends" email list and has been keeping up on our
43 activities. Gary made a motion to nominate Sue, close nominations and elect Sue, second by
44 Danielle. Motion passed unanimously.
45
46 5.
47
48 6. Liaison Officer Reports. Tommie was in attendance, but did not have anything specific to
49 report.
50
51 7. Street Department Report. John provided an update on several items that have been
52 discussed recently by the PTS committee:
53
54 • Removal of the partial street closure at 6th and Cleveland will require Commission
55 action. There is an interest in seeing it removed, so staff will pursue getting it on a
56 Commission meeting agenda.
57 • The crosswalk at Garfield and 6th has been repainted by MSU.
58 • Police Chief Price is planning on addressing distracted driving during the
59 Commission policy meeting on October 3rd. At Commissioner Taylor's request, the
60 City has budgeted for up to $10,000 for education related to distracted driving.
61 • A 25 mph sign has been added southbound to the radar sign on Rouse in front of City
62 Hall. The City will also add one northbound.
63 • Ralph explained that this committee recommended to the City the removal of the left-
64 turn prohibition at Highland & Ellis. Ralph communicated this recommendation to
65 Debbie Arkell in July and she responded by saying it's a topic still under
66 consideration. John and Debbie then agreed that the most appropriate solution is to
67 remove the signs and possibly remove a portion of the pork chop median. This
68 should make it possible for trucks to make the left-turn back toward Main Street.
69 John will notify Tommie when the signs are down.
70 • Gary has also been working on getting a trail connection with a pedestrian crossing at
71 Highland & Ellis, which should be installed this fall. John said they're also adding
72 another street light at the intersection to improve visibility of the crossing and the bus
73 stop.
74 • Dustin Johnson will be taking over administration of the CTEP program (as was
75 alluded to at our last meeting), but has not met with Ron Dingman yet to discuss the
76 transition.
77
78 8. Reports from Related Groups. BABAB was involved in the funding request for education
79 related to distracted driving. It's not clear to Ralph if the education is related to just cell
80 phone use while driving or if it would be a larger education piece. It was not clear to John
81 either, but he thinks it will be assigned to the Police Chief to decide.
82
83 Ralph reiterated that Dustin Johnson will take over administration of the CTEP program. It's
84 still unclear whether an application has been submitted to Helena yet. John, Gary and
85 Danielle are all on the CTEP task force. Ralph asked all three to follow up on this and report
86 back at our next meeting.
87
88 Danielle provided a summary of highlights from the recent Montana Safe Routes to School
89 newsletter. Ralph asked about an update on local projects. Danielle said Andy provided an
90 update at our last meeting by stating that several local projects were recently bid and are
91 currently under construction. Applications for the next round of SRTS funding are due
92 December 31, 2011.
93
94 9. Crosswalks on South Willson. Ralph asked if the crosswalks on South Willson had been
95 repainted yet and John said they were just working on them last week. All either were
96 recently painted or will be very soon as weather permits.
97
98 10. Roundabout at College and 11th. Gary asked how the roundabout has been working so far
99 and asked if there have been any accidents. Tommie reported that there was a pedestrian that
100 was "tapped" the other day, but was not injured. Sean asked if it would be safer to move the
101 crosswalks further from the intersection. Ralph explained that there are trade-offs —it could
102 improve safety to have some additional distance from the intersection, but the further they
103 are from the intersection, the further the pedestrian has to walk out of their way. Ralph
104 observed vehicles waiting unnecessarily long to enter the roundabout, but he also talked to a
105 friend who observed them being overly aggressive entering the roundabout. Gary noted that
106 he was impressed with the reduced congestion in that area at 5:00 pm. Sue has talked with
107 several people and the only negative comments she's received have been from people that
108 refuse to use it.
109
110 11. Distracted Driving. John has done a good job of keeping Ralph informed about when this
111 topic will be on the Commission agenda. Chief Price will be making a presentation at the
112 Commission meeting on October 3rd. Sam noted in an email to Ralph that the Chief's
113 statistics provided during a recent BABAB meeting were not very helpful to the cause. The
114 survey completed during crash investigations showed about 10 of 500 people were on the
115 phone when the crash occurred. Sam indicated that he didn't think those statistics are
116 representative, because they should be more like twice that much. John noted that the data
117 should be available online as an attachment to the Commission memo. The October 3rd
118 meeting is a policy meeting so voting will not take place, it will be for information only.
119
120 Members of the public can speak at the beginning of the meeting or the Mayor may allow
121 additional public comment during this topic discussion. Sean suggested asking the Mayor at
122 the beginning of the meeting to allow for public comment/questions after the Chief makes his
123 presentation. As Ralph has noted before, he feels official advisory bodies (ones whose
124 members are at least partially appointed by the City) should be allowed a block of time in
125 excess of three minutes to make comments and offer their advice. Sean noted that he would
126 like to see a representative from our committee and others (depending on the topic) at the
127 table to allow for additional discussion. Sean said we could also contact staff and ask to be
128 included on the memo and be part of the presentation. The other option is for the
129 Commission to ask a question of the person talking, then the 3-minute rule no longer applies.
130
131 12. Next Meeting. Our next regular meeting time will be October 12th. This should work well
132 for everyone in attendance today.
133
134 13. Removal of developer improvements. Ralph posed a question about what happens when a
135 Commission condition results in a cost for improvement by an applicant and staff then have
136 liability concerns related to its removal. Is there a financial question? Does the party
137 required to install it in the first place get reimbursed? Do the level of service (LOS)
138 requirements need to be updated? Debbie has stated that the Commission could make the
139 decision to remove it and it seems that the City Manager could also provide that direction.
140 John explained that if there is a liability concern, they want someone higher up to provide the
141 direction.
142
143 Is a change to the LOS requirements already in the mill? Sean said this committee could
144 make a recommendation to the Commission to make a UDC (Unified Development Code)
145 change to factor time of day into minimum LOS C requirements. Danielle stated that she
146 thought there were some proposed changes last year that would affect these requirements, but
147 she did not hear if they were ever adopted. Ralph will follow up on this.
148
149 14. Cleveland and 6th partial closure. John is concerned about whether the City really wants
150 to pursue this if a significant amount of people would be opposed to its removal. Sean
151 suggested that staff bring it up to the Commission as an FYI. There are at least a couple of
152 influential people in the community that will be opposed to removing it. Sean explained that
153 it's inconsistent with the spirit of connectivity and it's a precedent that the City should not
154 set. Ralph asked why this is coming up now and John explained that it was related to detour
155 routes for construction on South 8th. It cannot simply be removed because it will require
156 Commission action. The options are temporary removal for closure of South 8th next
157 summer or permanent removal. This committee should discuss it in more depth and decide if
158 we want to weigh in.
159
160 15. Bike and pedestrian funding in transportation bill reauthorization. Danielle recently
161 forwarded some additional information to Ralph regarding bike and pedestrian funding in the
162 upcoming transportation bill reauthorization. Her intent was simply to provide some
163 additional tools that can be used to easily send letters to Tester, Baucus and Rehberg. Rather
164 than forwarding all of that information to the group, Ralph suggested that anyone interested
165 in more information contact Danielle.
166
167 16. Future Agenda Items. The following items have been carried over from previous meeting
168 minutes as potential future agenda items.
169
170 • Missing sidewalk sections and accessible curb ramps along Main Street
171 • Sidewalk/trail along Oak from 7th to Rouse
172 • Longfellow Crossings
173 • Path along Bridger Canyon Road
174 • Galligator Trail crossing at South Willson & Lincoln — review 4 of crossings along
175 Willson from Kagy to Garfield and consider a recommendation to install another at
176 Mason
177 • South Willson & College intersection improvements
178 • Citizen proposal to install flashers on South Willson at Dickerson
179 • Continue discussion on Complete Streets Policy
180 • Continue discussion on Sidewalk Encroachment Policy
181 • Continue discussion on Distracted Driver Issues
182 • South 19th Avenue turn lanes
183
184 The meeting was adjourned at 1:20 PM.
185
186 Next Meeting: October 12, 2011 as noted above.
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188
189 Minutes by Danielle Scharf
190 Minor edits by Ralph Zimmer